With liberals accusing Republicans of having a “war on women,” Republicans should respond by taking a strong stand for women.

Women have struggled long and hard for the equal treatment they have achieved in America.

The Republican Party should side firmly with women to preserve these advances in civil rights by resisting agendas that allow anti-women laws to be implemented on a neighborhood, city, state or national basis.

Therefore, it is hereby proposed as a resolution for the Republican Party Platform, that the Republican Party is AGAINST laws that permit:

WIFE-BEATING – allowing a man to bully, batter or be physically abusive to his wife.

PUNISHMENT OF RAPE VICTIMS – whipping, stoning or inflicting corporal punishment on a woman who has been a victim of rape.

FORCED MARRIAGES – forcing a woman into an involuntarily marriage, or otherwise pressuring her to marry someone she does not want to.

SEX TRAFFICKING – transporting a woman to be used for prostitution or sexual acts.

SEX SLAVERY – threatening, intimidating, or manipulating a woman into engaging in sex against her will.

NO AGE OF CONSENT – allowing a man to marry a girl who is under the age of consent.

NO FREEDOM TO BE ALONE IN PUBLIC – not allowing a woman to leave her home without being accompanied by a male relative.

MALE-ONLY DIVORCES – only allowing a man to divorce his wife, but not allowing a woman to divorce her husband.

DEFENSELESS DIVORCE – allowing a man to divorce his wife by simply saying “I divorce you,” or other means without the due process of American law.

NO ALIMONY – denying alimony to a woman who has been divorced, without the due process of American law.

NO VISITING RIGHTS – denying a woman who has been divorced from seeing or visiting with her children, without the due process of American law.

KIDNAPPING OF CHILDREN – facilitating a father taking a woman’s children to another country that has laws denying her rights to her own children.

POLYGAMY – allowing a man to simultaneously have multiple wives.

CITIZENSHIP MARRIAGES – facilitating foreign men intentionally deceiving and misleading women into marriage for the purpose of gaining citizenship status.

INEQUALITY OF TESTIMONY – holding that a woman’s mind is deficient and therefore requiring the testimony of two women to be equal to the testimony of one man, or otherwise devaluing a woman’s testimony in court simply because of her sex.

INEQUALITY IN INHERITANCE – allotting a woman half the inheritance as a man, or otherwise discriminating in the distribution of inheritances because of a woman’s sex.

HONOR KILLINGS – allowing a system which effectively provides cover for a man who kills a wife or daughter that embarrassed him before his group, gang, cult, or cultural community.

MUTILATION – practicing female genital mutilation or female circumcision on infants and young girls, or on adult women against their will.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT – beheading, amputation, disfigurement or any form of cutting off parts of a woman’s body as punishment for a crime.

DEATH THREATS – issuing death threats on a woman for leaving an abusive marriage, or leaving a gang, a cult or a cultural community.

INEQUALITY – insisting that every woman must belong to some man, and that men hold a superior status before the law than women.

DETERMINING OF DRESS – discriminating, threatening, uttering abuse, or committing violence on a woman because she is seen in public not wearing a particular dress or covering.

Though the behaviors listed above may be addressed by existing laws in various states, nevertheless there is a growing phenomenon occurring in communities across America that needs to be addressed, namely, the practice of instituting these anti-women laws by claiming tolerance for them as a cultural accommodation.

A cultural accommodation may begin with a husband forcing or intimidating a wife into complying with these anti-women laws; then the men in a neighborhood forcing or intimidating the women living there to comply through fear of random violence; then demanding local communities allow men to practice anti-women laws as part of tolerating a cultural tradition; then pressuring uninformed politicians and courts to allow them to practice anti-women laws as their own form of clandestine justice.

Just as the original Republican Party Platform in 1856, during the time of Republican Abraham Lincoln, took a stand against the cultural practice in some communities where individuals of African descent were mistreated and enslaved, so today the Republican Party stands against the cultural practice in some communities where women are mistreated and effectively enslaved.

Though a small percentage of slaves had grown accustomed to mistreatment and, for a variety of reasons, supported their masters and the continuation of that culture, so today a small percentage of women have grown accustomed to their treatment and, for a variety of reasons, advocate for the continuation of anti-women laws, placing other women who wish to be free at risk.

Gangs such as the Bloods, Crips, MS-13 and pimps who practice clandestine neighborhood rules are not to be tolerated, especially as they may result in a degraded treatment of women. In the same way, the KKK, Mafia, cults, or other cultural groups that practice vigilante neighborhood justice should not be tolerated.

The innocent woman needs an advocate to stand with her, whether by guaranteeing her access to protection from an abusive husband; or access to protection from a gang, cult or cultural leader who teaches abusive behavior toward women; or access to protection from neighborhood violence designed to instill fear and bring her into submission; or by rescuing her from sex-trade or an involuntary marriage; or protecting her from being killed for leaving a group.

Financial contributions to candidates from individuals or groups that want to enact anti-women laws, or fear of threats from the same, should not be allowed to reverse the advances women’s rights have made over the last two centuries.

The famous Republican Frederick Douglass, the first African-American to receive a vote for president of the United States in a major party’s roll call vote, at the 1888 Republican National Convention, was a champion of women’s rights.

Frederick Douglass chose as the motto of his abolitionist paper, The North Star: “Right is of no Sex – Truth is of no Color – God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren.”

As stated, women have struggle long and hard for the equal treatment they have achieved in America.

Resolved, that the Republican Party stands firmly with women to preserve their advances in civil rights, and resists any covert agenda to allow anti-women laws, such as those listed above, to be implemented on a neighborhood, city, state or national basis.